Changes in the rotation might occur on a decadal scale and could aid our understanding of how processes deep in the Earth affect its surface.
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Researchers Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song analyzed the difference in the waveform and travel time of seismic waves from near-identical earthquakes that have passed through the Earth’s inner core along similar paths since the 1960s. They found that since around 2009, paths that previously showed significant temporal variation have exhibited little change, suggesting that the inner core rotation has paused. They also identified that this might be associated with a reversal of the inner core rotation as part of a seven-decade oscillation with a previous turning point occurring in the early 1970s. The authors indicate that this variation correlates with changes in geophysical observations at the Earth’s surface, such as the magnetic field and the length of day.
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